Eamon Dennehy of Heywood Community School, Ballinakill, Laois and the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) said it was not a paper where a student could have relied on rote learning to get through.

“Higher order thinking was required and candidates had to apply their knowledge to everyday situations.. It was more about gauging understanding than rote learning”, he said.

Mr Dennehy said this was a growing trend in this paper and one that he welcomed. He said students he met afterwards “seemed happy enough”.

He described the ordinary level paper as student friendly, that “sought to gauge what the student knew rather than trying to catch them out on what they didn’t”.